


Tainted

by satan_copilots_my_tardis



Series: Tainted [1]
Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Abandonment, Attempted Murder, Gen, Kidnapping, Morties fighting Morties, Mostly Canon Compliant, Pre-Slash, Revenge, basically Eyepatch has a lot of issues and is ready to fight, but there will be AU elements thrown in, implied character death (of minor characters), some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 17:51:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13253502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satan_copilots_my_tardis/pseuds/satan_copilots_my_tardis
Summary: “Who’s stupid now, bitch?!”Ice floods your gut. Rick, his Rick, your Rick, is crumpled on the floor beside him and Riq IV is laughing.“--we just got him back!” You can hear Summer’s voice distantly as your fingers shake around the blaster. That won’t do. You use both hands to steady your aim, eye switching back into combat mode and you have to blink a few times to get it to stop targeting IV before it locks on C-137.You’re not expecting the next plasma blast that splits the air to not belong to your gun.Eyepatch Morty thinks C-137 is unstable which is a disturbing thought considering how fucked up he is. Deciding to keep an eye on C-137 causes everything to just go to shit.





	Tainted

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome, if you're new to my style of writing know that I play very loose with canon timelines. That being said this is an AU of season 3 in the sense that Eyepatch Morty is a separate Morty from Evil/President Morty in season 3. This fic works off the assumption that Eyepatch was Rick's first Morty.

This has to be Rick’s fault. The thought ricochets bitterly around your brain and circuitry as you duck under a bench to avoid the gunfire from overhead. As soon as you’d heard Rick ‘C-137’ was being incarcerated by the Galactic Federation you’d known that the Citadel was going to collapse. You peer out from your hiding place as the gunfire shifts to an oncoming wave of panicked Ricks and Morties. Idiots. You dart out from the bench and swipe a blaster off a nearby alien corpse as you make for the lowest level in the shuttle bay. Hopefully the teleportation into the Federation prison hadn’t disabled the particle field around your contraband makeshift ship. 

“M-m-morty!” Your cybernetic eye auto-targets Ricks, so you don’t even have to glance at him before firing the blaster. At least all of this chaos means that a few hundred Ricks can be eliminated from the multiverse. You round the next corner and come to a screeching halt as you encounter a wall that hadn’t existed in the middle of the Citadel a few minutes ago. 

“Motherfucker.” You hiss to part of the Federation hull before turning and heading for an alternate route. With a thought you switch the function of your eye from combat to escape and blink hard once against the disoriation the comes from the sudden x-ray scan it does of the area.  _ Calculating route…  _ You close your false eye as it works so that it doesn’t distract you too much from your immediate surroundings. It would be so pathetically  _ Morty _ to get shot in the head because you were distracted.  _ Route found. Displaying.  _ A map pops up in front of your eye and you sneer. 

Of course you’re going to have to go through the Council’s chamber to get out. Fuck it, fine. Maybe you can shoot them all in the head if Rick hasn’t beaten you to it. You take a breath, ready your blaster and take off towards the chamber.

* * *

“You’re the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever--”

“Ahhh!” You hear the plasma fire before you clear the doorway onto the balcony, but you can see C-137 for yourself when he screams, “Who’s stupid now, bitch?!” 

Ice floods your gut. Rick, his Rick, your Rick, is crumpled on the floor beside him and Riq IV is laughing. 

“--we just got him back!” You can hear Summer’s voice distantly as your fingers shake around the blaster. That won’t do. You use both hands to steady your aim, eye switching back into combat mode and you have to blink a few times to get it to stop targeting IV before it locks on C-137. 

You’re not expecting the next plasma blast that splits the air to not belong to your gun. 

“Nice work.” 

A numbness spreads through you as you see Rick stand back up, rubbing his forehead. The fake standoff trick. Right. A classic. You think the two of you pulled it off half a dozen times before he stopped trusting you to use a disarmed blaster. 

“G-g-good thing I saw that note! Ha ha.” Rick is too distracted, by the Citadel, his own plans, his arrogance, to notice the genuine shock and tremors running along your counterpart’s tense shoulders. But you see it all and you know what your voice used to sound like when you lied. C-137 just shot to kill in a moment of passion. The Citadel shifts violently and the three below take off out of the chamber. 

You switch your eye back into navigation mode and head down to the shuttle bay to your ship. You manage to knock off a few more Ricks on your way, a handful of Morites too when it's necessary, but otherwise avoid any more serious conflict. And, thanks to your programming, the particle barrier did its job protecting  your small piecemeal craft from the chaos and your ship is functional. 

As you climb in and pilot your way through the bay, blasting open the doors and watching a dozen Federation soldiers get sucked out into the void of space, your mind is racing. 

_ Navigation complete. Enter new coordinates: _ Your eye prompts as it syncs to the onboard navigation system. You key in the code unflinchingly. With the Council gone there’s no reason to keep putting C-137 and Rick on the backburner anymore. 

Besides, you don’t think you can ignore them now if you wanted to. 

“Track C-137,” You tell the computer. “Take me to whatever dimension they’re hiding in now.” The portal gun embedded in the dash flares brightly once before the ship is awash with green light. 

* * *

“Morty, are you okay?” The concerned hologram asks as it flickers to life on the coffee table. 

“I’m fine Arthricia, why?” You’re in the process of setting up the security system for your new apartment. It’s not difficult to find a small place to rent out what will look the other way when it comes to your youth and the fact that you’ve got a spaceship in your spot of the garage. You could almost be grateful that the federation so thoroughly desensitized this reality to sci-fi esque bullshit because it’s almost laughable how easily you’re able to slip under the radar. 

“The Citadel falling has been all over galactic news, you asshole.” She nearly hisses and you can imagine the way she would have smacked the back of your head if she was here in person. You honestly hadn’t expected news to travel so quickly to Purge Planet or you would have answered one of her earlier calls.  “And last I heard you were in it.” The cat alien is still frowning at you, but her ears aren’t tacked against her skull anymore so you don’t think she’s that furious. 

“I should have sent you a message sooner, I’m sorry.” The slight bristle of her fur flattens, visible even in the semi-transparent blue of the hologram. 

“It’s fine. Just don’t do it again or I’m going to come kick your ass myself.”  

A smile curls the edge of your lips and some of the lingering tension since the Citadel was destroyed recedes. Meeting Arthricia had been a chance encounter shortly after Rick had abandoned you and you’d just gotten your own portal gun to start working. But you’re glad you ended up there. Arthricia has more of a spine than half of the beings you’ve met in the multiverse and had taken to meeting you and seeing your technology like a fish to water. 

“You could also stand to call a little more often.” She sighs and the hologram shifts as she moves to sit somewhere on the other end. “I haven’t even gotten to tell you about last year’s purge.” 

“Did you finally get back at those rich assholes?” If anyone could do it with a hatchet and pure determination, you think Arthricia could. 

“Well yes, and it was amazing, but what’s going to actually interest you is the fact I didn’t do it alone.” 

“Full on rebellion?” 

“No, off world tourists who had suits of power armour and a fondness for lab coats.” 

You stiffen and give your friend your full attention. “A Rick and Morty came to Purge Planet?” 

“Yeah, there wasn’t a good way for me to find out their designation, but they didn’t have Citadel badges and they were clearly normal humans.” 

That… doesn’t narrow it down, not really. There are infinite Rick and Morties in the universe, that means infinite Ricks who refused to join the council and who look human enough.   
“Did they portal to the planet?” It would be risky, but you could probably hack Rick’s portal gun again to see if--  
“No, sorry, they flew.” Damn it.

“What were they like?”

“Like you’ve said.” She replies, leaning back in her chair. “I shot Rick in his liver, if that’s any consolation.”

“It is.” You can’t help but smile again. “What was his Morty like?”

“He was annoying, to be honest. Guess I’m used to a higher caliber of Morty.” You roll your eye as she winks. “But he started off protesting the Purge pretty wholeheartedly but by the time they’d caught up to me he was trying to kill everyone in sight. He even threatened to purge his Rick.” 

“So, unstable then?” It’s more statement than question.

Arthricia hums. “Very. Then after all that he hit on me.” 

“Sounds like a Morty.” 

She regards you for a long moment. “I was expecting you to ask more about the Rick.” 

“I’m currently tracking the Morty with my Rick. He’s… he’s unbalanced in a way I haven’t seen in a Morty before.” Arthricia doesn’t say anything to that, but her ear twitches uncomfortably. “I need to keep an eye on this or else he might end up killing Rick before I get a chance.” 

“Well then good luck, Morty.” 

“Thanks, Arthricia.”

“And I’m taking you up on your offer to get off world.” She adds with a frown. “The villagers reinstated the Purge.” Her ears droop. “You were right, a society like this isn’t going to fix itself any time soon, and I’m not wasting my life trying to do it for them.” 

“Alright, let me finish getting set up here then I’ll come and help you relocate. Will you be okay for a week?” 

“Yeah, that’s fine. Talk to you soon, yeah?”

“Sure, I’ll send some files, pick out whatever planet you want.” 

“Thanks Morty.”

“Bye.” 

The hologram fizzles out and you realize that you must have stopped tinkering with the security system at some point during the call. 

It’s not hard to provoke a Morty to extreme violence. It just takes time, stress, and if you want to speed up the process, pain. You managed to make hundreds of Morties go rabid enough to kill ‘Evil Rick’ over the course of a few days. But it’s not normal for a Morty to become so stressed in a few hours that he’d kill innocents, let alone threaten his Rick without brainwashing or another outside influence action on him. 

You’re not one for jumping to conclusions, but you wonder if you could hack their ship’s GPS remotely and find out if C-137 visited Purge Planet last year. 

* * *

Once you get your security system up and get some surveillance equipment up around the Smith house you start to see immediately how this family is being influenced by Rick. He gets rid of Jerry for starters. Albeit he does it in a much subtler way than he did with your father, but Jerry is removed from the equation for at least ninety percent of the time so you figure Rick’s done the math and has seen now that he can’t just knock him off without someone eventually getting suspicious. Though, to be fair, it took a long time before anyone really figured out what happened. Rick seems to have everything he could want in this life; a semi-functional relationship with his daughter, freedom to come and go as he pleases, a Summer, a Morty. You don’t think that Rick is about to leave this dimension anytime soon.

Unfortunately the cameras can’t do everything. You have to keep them far enough from the house that Rick’s own security system won’t pick them up and low tech enough that if he does notice that he’ll think they’re some useless government monitoring system. Additionally you can’t follow them all the time when they’re out adventuring. Rightnow you need to be patient and make sure that you aren’t noticed while you’re gathering data. So you settle into this dimension. You closely monitor the Smith household, and Jerry on a small, less looked at screen, and wait to see if Rick’s about to come bursting in saying that he’s found you out. But no such burst is forthcoming. Good. You shift your attention to Morty C-137.

He’s… different than he was when you last saw him. Last time he was idealistic, still seeking Rick’s approval in all things and his rage, your rage, the suppressed rage that every Morty has if pushed hard enough, had been carefully tucked away and cultivated to be useful. You thought that Rick had figured out how to train that rage so that he could use your replacement as a weapon, but now you’re not so sure. 

When Rick goes off planet, shockingly without C-137, and this is the best opportunity you’ve gotten to tail him since the Citadel, so you grab your blaster and your portal gun and you get close enough to the house to monitor the situation and far enough that you don’t trip any of Rick’s remote surveillance or security. This Smith household is just as disoriented as yours was after Jerry had ‘gone missing’ and you can see the strain that it’s putting the remaining members immediately. But nothing seems particularly out of the ordinary, even Summer bursting through the garage is parr for the course as far as a day in the Smith household goes. 

The first red flag since the Citadel is when C-137 starts yelling at Beth. 

“I tricked Rick--”

Morties don’t ‘trick’ Ricks. Even if they wanted to a Rick would never do something for a Morty that they weren’t going to do on their own anyway unless they were going to get something out of  it. Especially not this Rick. And this Morty not whining isn’t enough of an inconvenience to be the cause. But… there’s no reason that Rick would willingly spend time with Jerry. There’s something wrong with this dimension. 

You see Summer run off towards the woods before C-137 stops scolding his mother, and ready yourself to follow them when they eventually notice. 

* * *

“Be careful Ethan, you’re s’more is burning.” You have no idea where he’s going with that line, he could have said anything to be more threatening. But you can feel the hairs on the back of your neck start to prickle so you figure that maybe it doesn’t actually matter what he says so long does so in that tone of voice as he keeps staring down the teenager with those cold eyes. A heavy dread circles your gut as you watch him turn the morphizer on the boy. It’s ruthless, even by your standards. It reminds you--

( _ “Nobody crosses me. Not even you M-morty.” _ And the bright flare of a portal, whine of a blaster, and then your own screaming.) 

C-137 stands up and it pulls you out of your memory, you realize that Ethan is the only one screaming. Fuck. Your hands are shaking and there’s a cold sweat prickling your brow. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. 

“You left my sister in a state of emotional distress for twelve hours.” He remarks coolly as he wheels the machine back towards the car. “It seems fair to leave you like this for the same amount of time.” 

Fuck. C-137 just made your top priority.

* * *

As much time as you spend spying on C-137 and Rick, going on errands off planet, and portal hopping to other dimensions, you do eventually need to restock your cabinets. And although you’re used to alien cuisine sometimes nothing beats a good Earth pb&j. It’s somewhat risky for you to go outside your apartment at all, but you take precautions. 

The small mom and pop store you end up at is outside the range of places Rick, the Smiths, or even the displaced Jerry might wander into accidentally. You check and double check your cameras to check that Rick and C-137 aren’t about to leave the house for any reason only to find they’re going on a short adventure with Summer. Good. That should give you enough time to grocery shop in peace and get back to your apartment before they return. 

You weren’t expecting the trip to be as difficult as it is. Your knuckles turn white where they’re gripping your basket too tightly and your chest constricts as you walk through the store. This is the most people that you’ve been around since the Citadel. Fuck. You thought you’d thoroughly repressed that Morty tendency to internalize trauma and freak out about it at a later date. Apparently not. Walking through the aisles no one gives you a second look and you work on regulating your breathing. It takes going through all of the produce section before you’re able to loosen your grip on the basket and remember that no one is going to shoot you while you’re picking out peanut butter.

“Morty?”

The panic is still close enough that you jump slightly as you look up from the bread shelves. Of course. “Hi, Jessica.” There’s a painful constriction in your chest that has nothing to do with fear at the sight of her. When was the last time you’d seen her, your version of her? It must have been just after you’d been released from the hospital. She’d been so worried and kind in your grief. It had made you realize she didn’t have to be just an adolescent infatuation but someone you could have genuinely learned to love. You’d made it a point not to think about her ever again once you’d left. 

“Oh no, what happened to your eye? Are you alright?” Her brows crease and she reaches out to put a gentle hand on your arm.

Shit. You shake yourself out of your shock at seeing her again. “Oh, uh,” the stutter is difficult to slip back into at first, but you know from living in the Citadel that it will get easier after a few minutes. “R-Rick and I were out on an adventure and my eye got hurt,” you say vaguely. It’s better to not give her any specifics that she might remember and bring up with your counterpart. Your gut twists when she makes the same sympathetic expression you remember. “But I’ll be fine in a couple of hours.” You rub the back of your neck and throw in a nervous, sheepish laugh for good measure. 

“Oh, well that’s good, I’m glad you’re going to be okay.” 

“Ha, thanks, well I’ve got to get going.” You pick a load off the shelf at random and drop it into your basket. “Post adventure snacks are on me today.” 

“Alright, well it was nice seeing you anyway.” She smiles, warm and soft and you miss being hopelessly infatuated with her. “See you at school.” 

“Y-yeah, see you Jessica.” You manage to turn and casually escape down the aisle. Your appetite is gone and a knot has replaced your stomach but you manage to finish your shopping. 

Well that’s that you suppose. You’ve been seen. You interacted with someone in C-137’s life and that means that the jig is up. There’s nothing to do but wait for either Rick or C-137, or both, to track you down and confront you. Because eventually Jessica is going to mention this interaction either directly to C-137 or he’ll hear about it. 

(And if it was anyone else you’d make the problem disappear. But it’s  _ Jessica _ and she’d never blinked at the strangeness that hovered around you and she had been kind to you when you’d needed it most. You can’t just kill her.)

You walk back to your apartment and start making preparations for the inevitable while cursing your sentimentality. 

* * *

“I’ll bring something over.” You tell Arthricia as you lock your apartment door and set the security system. “Do you need anything else?”

“Honestly? I need about ten pounds of catnip and a dozen more hooks.” Perfect. You smile as you adjust your grip on the potted plant you’re bringing as a housewarming present. At least you know for sure she’ll like it. 

“What kind of hooks?” 

“More of those little plastic ones that stick to the wall.” 

“Alright, I’ll pick some up on my way.” Satisfied that if C-137 or Rick, or any other intruders you suppose, attempt to get into your apartment while you’re gone won’t get in alive you turn and head down to the parking garage. 

“You’re a lifesaver.” She continues before you can respond. “And don’t get cocky, I managed to find you a Megaseed as a thanks for setting me up out here.”

You’d almost be surprised if you hadn’t deliberately gotten her a place two blocks from a known intergalactic black market trading post so she could keep an eye out for rare objects you might find useful. “I would say that I resent that you think you need to pay me back for doing something nice for a friend, but I want that seed.” You absently flip up your eyepatch and use your eye to unlock your ship and start keying in your route. 

“Well then I guess you better get over here.” 

“Don’t get your tail in a twist, I’m on my way.”

“Eat me.” 

“See you soon.” You open the passenger side door and set the catnip on the floor. Hopefully it’ll stay secured on your way. 

“Uhh,” the single stuttered sound is enough to make your blood run cold and for your eye to switch into combat mode. It’s been three weeks. Three weeks and he shows up now? Your cybernetic eye scans the area and you find C-137 standing a few yards behind you, plasma gun in hand. “Y-you’re, you were Evil Rick’s Morty, r-right?” 

You don’t think C-137 had had very much experience holding someone up because he doesn’t even seem to notice you reach into the ship’s center console and slip the portal gun from its spot. It’s not a plasma blaster, that’s tucked into your waistband, but it might be distracting enough got you to get to your blaster if this goes south. 

“There are a lot of Evil Ricks in the universe, but yes. I was  _ that _ Rick’s Morty.” You straighten up a little. “Can I turn around or are you planning to shoot me in the back?”

“Y-you can turn around.” You only turn halfway, keeping the portal gun concealed at your side. “T-the gun is just a precaution.” He looks uncomfortable and unsure, not even really pointing the pistol at you. He looks like any other Morty who’s completely out of his depth. It turns your stomach that he can just flip a switch and go from a stuttering sidekick to someone who could galvanize a group of tortured souls,  to someone who can kill or maim without remorse. It’s so… un-Morty-like. Even you had to go all or nothing to survive when Rick left. 

“How’s Jessica?” 

C-137 frowns. “She’s fine.” It took her a while to mention you. You guess C-137 is less confident talking to her than he is about shooting Rick in the head. “W-what are you doing here?”

“Getting ready to go visit a friend off planet.”

“You’re not going around murdering Ricks and kidnapping Morties?” Ah, and there’s that same ruthlessness, white knuckles on his gun and steel in his eyes. 

“No. My murder spree served its purpose.” His mouth tightens into an even thinner line.

“A-are you going to be weird and evasive like a comic book supervillain man? I mean, what’s the point? You’re not going to impress yourself.” 

You regard C-137 for a minute. He’s not going to let you be evasive and you don’t know how much good it would really serve you anyway. Worse case you get out of this without revealing why you’re here and he tells Rick about you who starts thinking a little more critically about the murder spree incident. Best case, well, you honestly can’t see one right now, but maybe telling C-137 some of the truth will distract him. 

“Alright, I’m here because I saw that shoot out in the Citadel. I know that a lot of Morties think that you’re the One True Morty and the ‘Mortiest Morty’. I think you’re unbalanced.” Whatever slight glow of sheepish pride he’d begun to wear evaporates. “I think you’re dangerous.” 

“Me? You think  _ I’m  _ dangerous? We met because  _ your _ Rick was going on a cross dimensional murder spree and you were tagging along for the ride!” He snaps and you key in new coordinates into the portal gun behind your back. 

“What I did doesn’t negate what you’ve done or prevent you from doing something equally or more cruel in the future.” 

“A-are you fucking kidding me? Jeez, if this is what Rick had to deal with I’m almost sorry how long it took me to get that riot going.” He snaps. “Was your Rick as much of a pretentious douchebag as you? That was an extreme c-circumstance. I did what I had to do to help my grandpa.”

“I guess that means you thought shooting your Rick was helpful when he pushed you too far.” You retort coldly. 

“It was a ruse genius. I was supposed to shoot him.”

“I know the standoff ruse. Rick and I did it a dozen times, and I know what it looks like. You didn’t know that’s what was happening. You didn’t know that the blaster was a fake. You tried to shoot Rick in the head--” 

You wonder if he even sees it coming before he’s firing at you. 

If you didn’t have your cybernetic enhancements you don’t think you would have been able to open a portal fast enough to swallow the blaster fire. You reach for your own blaster as the portal blinks away. You aren’t expecting C-137 to disregard his gun and charge you with raised fists and a shout. The first blow catches your cheek, snaps your head to the side and makes you curse your luck. If he’d hit the other side he’d probably have broken his hand on your reinforced bones. 

“Fuck you! You don’t understand anything!” He snarls and you don’t even have a chance to register the pain before you’re digging your own knuckles into the soft flesh of his eye socket.

“Oh just shut up you piece of shit.” It slips out, coated in venom, as you swing again, fist sinking into his stomach. “What’d you say? ‘You’re not going to impress yourself’. I don’t give a shit about how you’ve been justifying yourself!” Rick hasn’t trained him how to fight because he lets the wind be knocked out of him and doubles over. “Facts are you shot Rick, you manipulated your family, and you tortured your sister’s ex-boyfriend. Anyone could tell you you’re unbalanced! I don’t give a fuck if you believe it or not: You’re dangerous!” You don’t give him a reprieve, raising a fist to bring it against his temple. “You’re more Rick than Morty!” 

It’s a thought that’s been ruminating in the back of your mind that you hadn’t intended to give voice to. But now it’s out in the world and it makes the air in your lungs curdle. It unbalances you enough that you’re not expecting it when C-137 regains his breath and throws himself into you, slamming your back against your ship. Your head connects hard against the mesh of metal and glass plating and you see black dots for a second in your human eye while your other warns you of an incoming fist too late for you to block it. C-137’s knuckles catch on your gritted teeth and you feel your lip and his skin break. Blood fills your mouth, yours or his, well it’s all yours anyway. He grabs you by the front of your shirt and snarls, 

“You killed Ricks! You tortured Morties! You’re a murderer! You don’t get to take the highroad here!”

You swallow the blood and sneer at your counterpart. “I don’t know where you went wrong, but unless you’re going to kill me, you better get used to having me around.” His grip loosens slightly and you push him away. “Because if you think I’m so terrible then can you imagine how bad I must think you’re going to get to make me so insistent?” 

C-137 stares at you and you don’t break eye contact. Your face is aching and your teeth are covered with blood and you suddenly realize how true your statement is. C-137 could be so much worse than Rick, than you even. He could destroy the whole flawed system of the multiverse if he manipulated the Motry masses. You think maybe he is self-aware enough to understand this too because he doesn’t come at you again. 

You slowly round your ship and open the driver’s side door. “See you around, C-137.” He grits his teeth and says nothing. 

(He also doesn’t shoot out your engines condemning you to death by a fiery explosion so you figure maybe there’s hope for him after all. Maybe.)

* * *

“About time you--! Holy balls, what happened to your face?” Arthricia exclaims as she opens her door. 

“Happy housewarming, I brought pizza, catnip, and command hooks.” She moves to let you in and your dump your armful of items on the cardboard box that says it contains her coffee table. A quick glance shows most of her furniture is still in boxes. But the couch is empty so you flop onto that, reaching into the discarded shopping bag to pull out an ice pack. You crack it and then place the rapidly cooling plastic bag on the welt swelling up on your cheek. 

Arthricia sets her security system when she shuts the door behind you. “Plutonian Ale pairs well with anchovy pizza, right?”

“Bless you, anything that gets us wrecked pairs well.”You hear her move into the kitchen and the clatter of cabinets being opened followed by the light clinking of ice being dropped into the glasses before she reappears. 

“Good ‘cause you look like you need a couple of drinks before you’re going to tell me who mangled your face.” 

You sit up enough to take the glass she offers you. “What can I say? I just do it to myself.”

* * *

 

Although you stressed to C-137 that you would be sticking around to keep an eye on him it does take you a few days to go back to the apartment. It’s entirely possible that C-137 told Rick about your presence and a painful death is waiting for you there. It’s equally as likely that C-137 will just try to kill you himself. You’ll drive yourself insane turning possibilities over in your head so you decide that you’ve lingered in Arthricia’s space for long enough and depart.  The flight back to Earth is uneventful and as you lower your ship into the parking garage you aren’t vaporized on the spot which might actually be a good sign. Or it could be Rick luring you into a false sense of security. Either way you keep your eye scanning for threats and your hand on your gun as you make your way into the apartment complex and up towards your place. You pass a few scattered neighbors on your way up, regarding their presence with a nod or muted greeting. It’s convenient to have a good rapport with the people in your immediate area, it means that you have more eyes looking out for you whether they know it or not. You think you became good with people some time after Rick left you for dead. 

“Hey Sci-fi.” Johnny, L3, greets when you step out of the stairwell onto your floor. The open crack of his door lets the pungent odor of stale smoke filter out into the hall. It smells like he’s been in there for days. 

“Hey Drug Rug.” You reply as you approach. “Have you seen anyone near my place?”

“Nah little dude. Haven’t even seen your ass in a while. Where you been bro? Off getting that alien pussy?”

“Not quite. So you haven’t seen me around at all? Not even without my patch?” 

The blonde picks at a stray thread on his sleeve. “Seeing you right now. I gotta say though, it’s pretty fucked up for you to just wear that thing as some kind of an accessory. My boy’s got a glass eye.”

“I have a cybernetic one.” You retort. “It’s all part of the sci-fi aesthetic. Thanks for keeping an eye out.” 

Johnny regards you for a second before shrugging and locking his door. “No problem. See you later, Sci-fi.” 

“Later.” 

Your fingers are still tight on your gun as you disable the security around your door and head inside. The apartment greets you in exactly the same state as when you’d left it. 

You spend the next twelve hours going through everything with a fine toothed comb just to be sure. 

* * *

A week passes and there’s nothing in your apartment or in your surveillance to suggest C-137 has told Rick anything about your confrontation. It makes you wonder why he’s keeping it a secret and how he’s played off his mottled yellow bruised eye and his split knuckles. You notice other things though. C-137 spends more time alone than he used to. He avoids Beth and Summer, even Rick when he thinks he can get away with it and you have no idea why. From what you can see he doesn’t appear to be preparing anything to use against you. He just stares off into space for hours and when he’s eventually shaken out of his reprieve he seems to need a second to pull himself together before he goes back to acting normally around his family. You wonder if it would be arrogant to assume he’s actually reflecting on what you’d said to him.

* * *

Apparently not. 

Even with the security system telling you that an unarmed C-137 is the one behind the door you’re not really expecting him to actually be standing there. And yet there he is. 

“W-we need to talk.” He’s wringing his hands and his shoulders are slumped, body the picture of nervousness, but his mouth is pressed into a thin line and his eyes are cold and determined. The security system scans him again, more thoroughly, and you can’t seem to find anything on his person that poses a threat to you. 

“Fine, come in.” You issue a command so that he’s not vaporized as he crosses the threshold and let him inside. 

He cuts to the chase. “There are things that don’t add up.” 

“We are bad at math.” It’s a bad joke delivered without an ounce of humor as you program your wall mounted blasters to target him. “What exactly do you mean?”

“I’ve been thinking about it and, fine, yeah, maybe you’re right. I could do some pretty bad things.” He mumbles. “But there are other Morties out there who are worse than me, or w-who could be worse. It doesn’t make sense for you to come after _me_ specifically. S-so I’ve been thinking, w-why else would you come here?”  
“Enlighten me.”

He watches you for a minute, expression pinched and uncomfortable. “W-were you his first Morty?” 

Your teeth grit together but you don’t flinch. Part of you is surprised that he’s put two and two together so quickly and neatly. (Another part wonders if he’s made the connection so easily because he’s already seen how little Ricks care about people as individuals.) “I’m not sure.” HIs mouth pulls into a tighter frown, but he nods, not meeting your eyes. “I could have been his first, or his hundredth. I don’t know how many times he dimension hopped before me, but he was my first Rick.” You admit. Maybe you should be playing this closer to the vest, but you don’t know if it even matters anymore. With C-137 standing in front of you there’s something black and writhing twisting around in your gut, an echo of the hate that you’ve cultivated for Rick. It’s not C-137’s fault that Rick chose him as your replacement but you can’t help resenting him. 

“Are you planning on attacking him again?” 

“I haven’t decided yet.” 

C-137 shoots you an incredulous glare. “G-great, real reassuring.” 

“I thought you didn’t see the point in playing games with yourself.” You shrug and then wait. He’s going to ask, eventually. He’s going to want to know why Rick abandoned you. He’s going to ask about your eye, or make the connection himself. You don’t think you’re ready to tell him, tell anyone really. You hadn’t even told your Beth or Summer before you’d run. Arthricia doesn’t even know the full story ans she’s the only friend you’ve got anymore. And when you don’t tell him he’s going to run right back to Rick and ask him instead and you’re going to be fucked. 

“O-okay, here’s how w-we’re going to do this.” C-137 says after a few long minutes of turning this new information over in his head. “I won’t tell Rick about you, so long as you stay away from him.” You raise a brow, not having expected to be negotiating so soon in the conversation. (Grateful he’s spared you from further questioning at the moment.) 

“And in return?”

“You can keep an eye on me… pun not intended. “ He begrudgingly concedes. “Maybe things have gotten a little… dark lately. And I don’t know how smart it is to have an evil version of yourself as your anger management coach, but that’s all I’ve got.” 

The knot of tension that’s been in you since the run in at the parking garage starts to loosen. “Fine. Don’t fuck things up by letting Rick get suspicious.” 

He sneers at you. “W-whatever man. Just do a better job staying away from our friends and family.” 

You think maybe this will work. 

* * *

This is absolutely not going to fucking work. A headache pounds at your temple as C-137 sits across from you at the little folding table that you’d thrown into your kitchenette corner. His shirt is still smoldering slightly from blaster grazes and he’s got something you think is alien brain sticking out of his hair. It’s been three months and this is the forth time that he’s come to see you after a particularly grueling adventure with Rick. (He’s been getting into fights at school too, he thinks you don’t know about that, but you do. You think it’s easier for him to fight at school because there he can’t pull a weapon and really lose control. Maybe if you were a therapist, or maybe if you’d just been a better more empathetic person, you’d know what to do with this information. Maybe you’d know what to say to turn him away from using physical violence as an outlet. But that’s not who you ended up being in your dimension and you’re left talking to yourself at a shitty table while watching brain drip out of your counterpart’s hair.)

“Let me get this straight: You convinced Rick to help some Federation refugees out of a tight spot while you two were out galavanting and when one of them revealed that they knew who Rick was and tried to capture him for the bounty you just fucking blew them all to hell.” 

“I c-couldn’t be sure who was in on it and they all knew what Earth w-we were going back to. If any of them reported on our movements it could have put my family in danger.” He says stubbornly, but you can see a tightness around his eyes. 

“That excuses the slaughter of potential innocents? Were there parents?” The line of his lips thins. “Children?” The hands on the table curl into fists. You nod and lean back in your chair. You probably would have done the same, once upon a time. You’d been considering killing Jessica when you’d seen her at the store. 

“At least you feel bad about it. Maybe wallow in the guilt for a while. If you stop feeling remorse--” You’ll have to put him down. “Then there’s nothing I can do for you.” 

“What are you even doing for me now?” He snaps. “All you do is talk down to me like you didn’t kidnap and torture a bunch of Morties and probably worse that I just haven’t found out about yet.” 

You want to hit him again. This is getting old. “I’ve already told you that that has nothing to do with this. Don’t try to turn this around on me just because you can’t control yourself.” Logically you know you shouldn’t snap at him, that it’s not going to help anything and that it’ll continue to prolong the point where you two actually reach some kind of understanding with each other. But, by god, you just can’t help it. 

“O-oh that’s rich. Like you’re not just turning all of your bullshit back on me?” C-137 is standing, palms flat against the table as he sneers at you. “Like you’re not just here throwing all your deficiencies at me because you just can’t figure out why Rick abandoned you.” 

The shitty table goes careening to the floor with a crash that’s sure to have your downstairs neighbors furious with you. But you hardly notice as you get a fistfull of C-137’s shirt in one hand while the other presses your blaster under his chin. Through the red mist of rage you see his eyes widen. Your finger tightens on the trigger, half a centimeter more and C-137 ‘s brains will be all over your walls. You could impersonate him well enough at this point that you could get past Rick’s security grid and the element of surprise would probably be just enough that you’d be able to kill him too. Then you could fuck off this planet, out of this dimension even, and just start over with something new. (Or find a nice quiet corner of space to blow your own brains out too. You’ll leave everything to Arthricia and she’ll spit on your corpse before she brings you home to your mother and sister.) 

“Get out.” You hiss finally, uncurling your fist from his shirt and shoving him towards your door.

“E-eyepatch--” And you think that maybe he might sound a little remorseful. Too fucking bad. 

“Get out.” You say again evenly. His expression is torn. He wants to fight back against your treatment, probably tell you that you deserve the harsh words and accusation. But what little decency is left in him feels bad about having stepped on a particularly sore nerve. When your look doesn’t waver and you don’t holster your gun he decides the best he can do is leave and he turns and lets himself out. 

Fuck. This isn’t going to work. 

* * *

You know that you should get over it. C-137 comments aren’t anything worse than what you’ve allowed yourself to think since Rick left you and you’re supposed to be keeping an eye on him. But as petty as it is you just can’t seem to let it go. Instead you give Johnny your number and tell him to call if he sees you sans eyepatch around, and fuck off. Even if you’re not hunting Ricks anymore you’ve still go shit to do. 

You check in with Arthricia first and she’s settling in just fine, keeping an ear to the ground for you. Which is how she finds out that both the Citadel and the Galactic Federation are rebuilding in one form or another. Apparently without the Counsel of Ricks the rest of the stupid bastards trapped on that rock are trying to become democratic, as if there’s not a second secret counsel waiting in the wings. It’s about as far on the other end of the political spectrum as they could get from the Federation’s rebuilding strategy. Turns out the high ranking officers that are left are slaughtering each other so that whoever’s left standing can become a dictator. Overall, bad news all around. Except for the fact that it gives you excuses for not being on any Earth dimension, the one C-137 is calling home or otherwise. There’s too much that needs to be done.

“Motherfucker.” You hiss to yourself under your breath as you duck into a, you glance around, copier room. Coming to one of the remaining Federation outposts to do recon had been a good idea in theory but clearly you haven’t thought this out enough. You hear alien footsteps and buzzing wings roar down the hall, past the door you’re hiding behind. Shit. They’re going to double back soon and you need to leave now. You take cover behind one of the bulky amorphous ink dribbling machines and take out your portal gun. 

The fluid casing is cracked from an earlier bout of gunfire that knocked it from your hand. That’s bad. You’ve probably been leaving a little trail of unstable portals throughout your trek through the building. You try to key in new coordinates but the computer doesn’t seem to want to cooperate. Noise rings out from the hall again, a guard is ordering that the office rooms be searched. Goddamnit! Can you not catch a break today? You suck in a breath. One two three four. Hold. One two three. Release. One two three four five six seven. Okay. You focus on your portal gun. This is your escape route. You can make it work. 

The computer probably isn’t working because it knows that there’s an irregularity in the fluid containment chamber. Uncontained portal fluid is insanely dangerous, even as stable as yours is and the gun has safeguards built in to keep you from being sucked molecule by molecule into another dimension and reassembled into a corpse if you’re lucky or a screaming disfigured mass of cancerous cells if you’re not. The gun isn’t going to work even if you patch the crack somehow and hopefully you’ll be able to make a new one assuming you get out of this alive. Stealing a ship is not an option and you don’t have anyone watching your back, if what Rick did could be called that, and your portal gun is broken. Okay, fine. Time to get creative. 

You rip open the handle and pull out the interdimensional positioning system and key in the coordinates you want. A bang sounds against the door, the lock stopping the guard’s progression for just a second and giving away your position. You shoot the pipes and veins that connect the copy machine to the rest of the building, ink spewing everywhere, and kick it in front of the door. That will buy you a couple more seconds. You move to the stretch of windows on the far side of the room. There are three guards stationed below, taking positions around the building. You use your eye to target the one furthest away and aim using your cybernetically enhanced hand. 

The shot shatters the window and splatters the bug over the street. Before the other two can register their shock and turn to fire at you you snap the portal fluid container from the top of the gun and hurl it at the ground towards them. Calculating for the higher gravity you give it eight seconds before it hits the ground meaning you need to throw the positioning device… now. You take a deep breath and back up from the window as blaster fire starts  blaze through the window, an unhappy melody with the pounding at the door behind you a steady beat. Fuck. Five seconds now. You count, curse yourself, and rush forward. You throw yourself from the window, grip tight on your gun and cybernetic eye locking on the still falling positioning unit. 

The glass portal fluid container shatters against the ground and the blaster fire stops as the guards on the ground are ripped to shreds by the bright yellow uncontained portal that spills out at their feet. Shit, that’s what’s going to happen to you if you didn’t calculate this correctly.  The wind whipping past you makes your human eye well with tears but your enhanced one doesn’t waver. You shoot the device just as it touches the surface of the portal. Electricity and plasma disperse over the surface and you hold your breath as you rush to meet it. 

It turns green half a millisecond before your sneaker hits it. 

You tumble out into your apartment and land hard against your floor. Shit. Your downstairs neighbors are really going to hate you. Your body hates you, distinct twinges of pulled muscles and scrapes making themselves known as you break your plasma blaster to get at its core. It’s nothing less than a small nuke in a metal cylinder the size of your thumb. You toss it through the portal. The color shifts to red before it blinks out of existence. 

You stay staring at the wall for a long moment, half expecting it to burst into a blinding light that will leave the shadow of this building burned into a crater. 

No such explosion is forthcoming. You slump against your shitty worn carpet and decide not to move ever again. 

Fuck, you didn’t even find out anything after all that. 

(“ _ Y-you’re--” a burp, “fucking useless M-morty.” _ )

For once you agree with the memory rattling around your skull. 

* * *

You’re not really expecting the frantic knocks on your door at three am, but the apartment’s defence system hasn’t kicked in yet so you slide from your bed and snag a pair of pajama pants from the drawer as you make your way stiffly to the door. The person either figured out a loophole in your defenses or isn’t programmed to be a threat, either way you like to know what you’re getting into. You blink and your eye scans the person still knocking with increasing urgency. Your face twists into a disinterested sneer before you open up. 

“Fuck off C-137.” But seeing him with your human eye tells you a lot more than scanning him did. Your alternate dimension counterpart is shaking and pale, dark circles under his eyes and a cold sweat beading along his brow. There’s blood under his nails and the scent of recently fired plasma beams clings to the air around him. Looks like you’re not the only one who’s had a rough day.

“I need your ship.” 

Your brow shoots up at his demanding tone, but there’s a touch of desperation there too. “Where’s Rick?” Immediately his mouth thins into a tight line. “Who took him?”

“Former member of the Galactic Federation. She was a mole and she got half of Rick’s friends killed,” he shoulders past you and you let him in, letting the door swing shut behind him. Ex-Federation huh? You don’t think that’s a coincidence. But you’d razed that place to the ground. There’s no way that anyone at that base survived that attack. “She also killed and then, apparently, resurrected Birdperson into some psychotic friend-murdering phoenix!” 

That’s… a lot of information that you’re going to need to compartmentalize. Starting with the keen ache that makes itself known behind your ribs at Birdperson’s name. He was like your uncle growing up and things had ended badly after Rick left and he wouldn’t tell you where he’d gone. “And what do you plan on doing?”

“I’m going to get Rick back, you asshole!” He snarls, still scanning your small apartment for any sign of your keys. 

“I figured that much, C-137. Do you know where they are? Do you have a way of interdimensional travel if they’re not in this universe anymore?” He seems torn between getting discouraged and more frustrated with every question you level at him. “What kind of weaponry do you have and is it even capable of disabling, or killing Birdperson?” You watch him closely as you ask the next question. “Are you willing to kill Birdperson again, in front of Rick even, to save him?”

C-137 goes still, save for his hands, curled into fists that shake at his sides. He takes a breath before he looks up at you, eyes cold and hostile. “What do you want me to say? No matter how I answer you’re just going to take it as more evidence I’m becoming ‘as bad as Rick’.” You level him with an even stare and wait for his answer, not this deflecting bullshit. He grits his teeth and finally hisses, “ _ Yes. _ ” 

“I couldn’t.” He makes a furious noise, throwing his hands up before turning and going back to looking for the keys. You head back to your room and grab some clothes, two spare plasma blasters, three knives, and your shoes. When you come back out C-137 looks twice as furious as when you’d left him. “Are you going to give me your keys or not?”

“I’m coming with you.” 

“ _ Why _ ?” And there’s too much anger there for the word to be simply incredulous. 

“Well for one my ship doesn’t have keys.”

“What?”

“It’s synced to my cybernetics, so unless you’re planning to rip out my eye and hot-wire my ship, I’m driving. Let’s go.”

* * *

“Morty who’s ship is this, what are we even doing here, Grandpa Rick--” Summer halts mid sentence and stares at you. Just like with Jessica all you can do is stare back. (It’s weakness and you know you need to stamp it out.) You’ve seen C-137’s current Summer during your surveillance but seeing her now is different. For one there’s a cut running across her forehead that’s crusted with fresh blood and her clothes are covered in something that look far too similar to concrete dust. Was she near an explosion? 

“Summer this is…” he glances at you. You still haven’t told him your designation, you don’t plan on ever telling him. So you shrug slightly instead. “This is Eyepatch Morty. He’s going to help us get Rick back.” 

“There’s another Morty on Earth?” Summer peers at you. “You kind of look like shit.” 

“I had a long day and it’s just getting longer.” you move around her to the driver’s side and the doors open with a thought. “Get in. How are we tracking Rick?” 

“He gave me a passcode to use in case of kidnapping.” C-137 says as he climbs into the passenger’s side. 

“No way little brother, get in the backseat.” Summer snaps, pushing him towards the back. 

“W-what? Summer!” He protests. 

“No, just because this is a rescue mission does not mean you get to ride shotgun. Oldest gets shotgun if they’re not driving.” 

“This isn’t important right now Summer.” C-137 grumbles, but he climbs into the backseat all the same. 

“Code.” You bark at him. 

“R-right.” He leans forward, shoulder brushing yours as he keys the code into the dashboard console. 

_ Locating… locating… locating…. _

Your eye and the screen ping at the same time. 

“It looks like they’re not too far out from the planet, probably a small sation or battleship based on where they’re parked.” They’d have to be careful or risk running out of fuel fighting the gravitational pull of the planet.

“Why are they staying in one place, and so close?” Summer asks and our fingers flex around the steering wheel. 

“This is a revenge plot, right?” 

“Based on Tammy’s e-evil villain monologue there’s no doubt about that.” C-137 glances at you. “Do you have some insight on that front?”

“If I were going for something flashier,” you say as you start up the ship and prime the weapons systems and shields, “If I wanted to make a point to say, a bunch of feuding lackies all vying for power, I would capture Rick and exterminate him. And maybe even the earth he’s been squatting on.” 

“What? No way. They’re gonna try to Death Star the planet?” Summer exclaims before she peers at you skeptically. “Why do you--”

“I don’t know that much about federation cruisers.” C-137 is all business, his stutter becoming less severe and his eyes sharp as knives. Dangerous.  

“I do.” Those sharp eyes meet yours in the mirror and he stares at you for a long moment. Your gaze doesn’t waver. 

Finally he nods once. “Okay. How are we doing this?”

* * *

C-137 is garing at the back of your head as you make your way down the ship’s corridors. 

“Stop sneering at me and watch my back.” 

“Summer should be here.” 

“We’ve already had this argument and since we’re currently enacting the plan where I won said argument I don’t see the point in having it again.” You snap over your shoulder. Summer is disabling the security cameras with a very clever little microchip you and Rick had put together years ago that still works just as perfectly now as it did back then. Somebody had to do it and you’re better in combat and she’d relented. C-137 is just being an asshole about it. 

His hand reaches out and snags the back of your shirt, yanking you to a halt and pushing you against the wall. For half a second you’re about to protest before your eye alerts you to a proximity alert. You glance over your shoulder at C-137, wondering how he had realized the guards were coming before your cybernetics had even picked up on it. He nods up at a security camera, the red recording light flashing in a very distinct pattern. Ah. So for all his complaining having Summer in the security room was a good idea after all. 

You wait for the guards to pass before you continue on. Silence stretches between you as you inch through the base. If this Tammy woman was good enough to ambush Rick not once but twice, and manage to kill Birdperson, then she’s probably smart enough to know that she can’t let Rick out of her sight before his execution. If she was really smart she wouldn’t have made enemies with Rick in the first place. (You guess you’re not all that smart either.) 

You have to focus on the mission but a sucking pit of worry has opened up in your stomach. Once this is over, provided you all survive it, Rick’s going to know that you’re here. Fuck. You don’t know how he’s going to take that, especially not when he realizes exactly who you are. 

( _ “Nobody crosses me.” _ ) 

“Are you sure this is worth the risk?” You ask, mostly to distract yourself from the echoes of blaster fire ringing falsely in your ears. You shouldn’t be spoiling for a fight this badly when you nearly died earlier and know that another opportunity to get wasted is right around the corner. 

But C-137 obliges you. “Fuck you. What are you even doing here? You’ve made it very clear what y-you think of me and Rick.”

Your mouth thins. “‘Rick and I’,” you correct. The air around C-137 is thick with his anger. “And I’m here because I don’t want the satisfaction of killing Rick to go to someone who hasn’t earned it.” You thought that would drag more fight out of the other boy but he doesn’t take the bait. Fine. You try to focus on your progress through the ship instead. The blueprints you were able to pull up from the Federation database flicker through your vision and you confirm that you’re about twenty meters away from the room that Rick’s likely being held at. 

“Eyepatch,” something in C-137’s tone makes you stiffen. “I’m shouldn’t have said that.” He doesn’t clarify and he doesn’t need to. It’s not quite and apology and you weren’t even expecting anything close to it but he keeps surprising you. 

“We’re approaching. Be quiet.” It’s not an acceptance but that doesn’t seem to surprise C-137 either. You both just tighten your grips on your weapons and prepare to blast this Tammy woman out of the sky. 

* * *

One second you’re both getting ready to burst through the holding chamber doors and the next you’re being thrown through the air, smashing through the doors and landing in a heap on the floor. A second later C-137 joins you. The injuries you’d gotten earlier twinge harshly under the treatment and you wonder how much more punishment your poor ribs are going to be able to take before they break. 

“Oh perfect. Morty and… Morty?” It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the woman grandstanding in the Federation uniform is Tammy. “Is this all the interdimensional help you could manage to scrounge up?” 

“Rick!” C-137 sits up, hand scrambling for his gun, and then a solid shape is connecting with him, sending him flying across the floor again. 

Shit. You stare at Birdperson. He’s barely recognizable under all of the mechanical enhancements they’ve grafted onto his body and your stomach flips. Shit. You let your eye shift into combat mode and make sure it’s tracking both his and Tammy’s movements as you look back towards the woman. 

She’s got Rick bound and gagged with plasma cuffs. Now that you’ve seen them you finally register the faint smell of burning flesh tainting the air. One false move and Rick’s going to lose his hands and feet. That’s bad but you can help with that. You can disable the cuffs from here but you can’t do that while your eye is in combat mode. 

“I’m not here as backup for him.” You say coldly. “I’m here for that Rick.”

Tammy raises a brow. “You can pick up a new grandfather in some other dimension, kid.”

“I don’t want him as a grandfather, I want him as a corpse.” You sneer, the old anger bubbling up easily and sliding across your skin like hot tar. “I’m not going to let you steal my kill. I brought his Morty here as a show of goodwill.” You push yourself off the floor making sure not to reach for your gun. Birdperson starts to rush you but Tammy raises a hand to stop him. You let your eye switch out of combat mode and start scanning the cuffs. 

“Don’t you fucking dare, Eyepatch!” Morty snarls.

“Eyepatch?” The woman’s stern face grows more pinched. “Doesn’t look like you need it.” 

“I thought I needed a nice eccentricity to really embrace villainhood. I doubt you need both a planet destroying laser and the reanimated, brainwashed husk of his former best friend as a lapdog but you wanted to show everyone in the galaxy that you’re the baddest bitch around.” You break past the first firewall on the cuffs just as Tammy barks out a laugh. Birdperson is still lingering at your shoulder but you catch C-137 getting to his feet out of the corner of your eye. It’s almost effortless for you to slip one of the knives from your belt and fling it in his direction. It sinks into the meat of his shoulder and he shouts as he grabs his arm. Our eyes meet for a brief moment and you know yours doesn’t give anything away, and yet you still see the light of recognition spark in his. 

Tammy snaps her fingers at Birdperson and he circles 137, readying a second set of plasma cuffs. Shit you need to work faster. “Any reason you want this particular Rick dead.”

“Several.” 

“If you were going for the suave and mysterious villain aesthetic I’d lose the yellow v-neck.” The second firewall crumbles. Keep her talking. 

“What did he do to warrant you destroying the entire planet, not that I doubt he’s earned it?”

Her face darkens with fury and you’ve seen the same ugly look reflected back at you in the mirror. The third firewall breaks and Rick’s off the floor in an instant, snatching the blaster from her belt and aiming it at Birdperson. 

“Don’t make me do this.” He snarls at his best friend. 

You have no such hesitation before you’re pointing your fingers, in the mock shape of a gun at Tammy. It’s not a trick you use often, especially not one that you want to use in front of Rick, but it’s your best option. It hurts like hell when the artificially grown skin, regrafted over your cybernetics, rips open at your fingertips for the blast. 

It tears through Tammy’s chest just as easily. 

You hear Birdperson screech and feel the sting of the superheated air as Rick’s plasma blast whizzes past you. But even as fragments of metal are scattered across the room’s floor he doesn’t stop moving to reach her. 

“Shit.” You curse and turn to check on C-137. He’s pushing himself off the floor, arm bleeding steadily. After all that talk of watching him to make sure he doesn't go too dark and he didn't even get to fire a single shot. When you offer him your hand, the one not torn open, he doesn’t hesitate before he takes it. 

“Summer it’s time to go.” He says quickly into his communicator. “Rick we need to go!” 

“N-no shit Morty.” 

He turns to you next. “Quick thinking. Next time try to avoid stabbing me.”

“Try to catch on faster next time.” You snap. 

“I don’t know where you dug up this shit but move it Morty.” Rick snaps. “And you better explain this on the way.”

“How about we get out of here before the ship’s engines overload and kill us all? Then C-137 can explain everything.”

If his glare is anything to go by you think he’s more angry at you pawning off that responsibility on him than he is about being stabbed. 

* * *

“Ahem.” You hear Rick clearing his throat but you continue resolutely staring up at the chunks of spaceship burning up in the atmosphere. Birdperson was still alive when you left. You doubt there’s anything left of him now. He betrayed you right along with Rick, his death shouldn’t make an ache spread out behind your ribs. “Heard you had a lot to do with me getting out of there, you know, quickly.” He mutters as he leans against your ship beside you. There are bandages around his wrists. Beth must have seen to him after she finished taking care of C-137 and Summer. 

“Did you actually come over here to thank me?” You’d more been expecting him to put another hole in your head, finish what he’d started two years ago. 

“Did you actually forget that I never thank anyone for doing something I could have done myself?” The sarcasm is mumbled around his flask. You figure C-137 told him everything while he was patching the old man up. The air is heavy between you with the weight of all the hurt and unasked questions that have been simmering in your mind since the day he left you.  Out of the corner of your eye you see him extend the flask towards you. It’s hard, but you manage to keep your eye from drifting to his face and resist the urge to remove your eyepatch to scan the contents for poison. Instead you absently reach for the flask and take a few sips of whatever alien liquor he’s decided is his drink of choice for the night. 

You wait for the rage to swell over the hurt, for the memories to crash over you and try to freeze you in place. But the rush of emotion never comes. You just saved his life after everything he did to you. Fuck, you’re still a Morty no matter how much you tried to change. You don’t ask him why he abandoned you, or accuse him of sharing a drink in loo of saying ‘thank you’, and the hurt seems irrelevant. You’re more than what he left you as. 

“Did C-137 tell you why I’m here?” 

“Course he did.” He punctuates his sentence with a burp and you hand back the flask. “I’ve got it all under control Morty.” Now you do look at him and this time he’s the one who avoids your gaze. “I’m keeping an eye on his situation. You can get back to your cross-dimensional murder spree if that’s what you want. No judgement here, so long as you don’t start wanting to scratch that ol’ revenge itch.”

“I’m not leaving.” You say flatly, reaching for the flask again which he passes back without comment. You wonder if he’s taught C-137 how to drink yet. “You don’t know how to keep an eye on these kinds of things. You tried to kill me to resolve my ‘situation’.” Rick doesn’t so much as flinch at the comment. Not that you’d expected him to. Whatever tears he had shed while strapped down in your fake Rick’s lab hadn’t been for you, not really. You hadn’t been foolish enough to think they were. (Yes you had, and it still stings.) “C-137 told me you were trying to keep him from getting a big head so that it wouldn’t happen again, but somehow you’ve made it worse.” You say turning to the other. “So I’m not going anywhere and neither are you.” You add firmly. “Because if I know one thing it’s that abandonment is only going to make this so much worse.”

Rick regards you for a moment before turning his attention up to the burning spaceship debris. “You know it’s  _ almost _ nice to see you again. Even if it means that I’ve doubled the number of pains in the ass I have to deal with on a regular basis.”

“Nice to see you too, Rick.” You wonder if C-137 could tell by your tone if you’re lying like you could with him at the Citadel. Because right now you’re not sure of your sincerity yourself. 

Rick doesn’t linger for much longer after that and you’re glad he doesn’t. You can tell that whatever happens from here between the two of you is going to probably continue to be uncomfortable to say the least. 

You heave a sigh and turn to get in your ship. Exhaustion wears at your bones. That’s two Federation headquarters destroyed in one day. That’s more than enough action for a day. Now all you want to do is go back to your apartment and sleep for a week. 

“Eyepatch,”

“Really?” You mumble under your breath before your turn to face C-137. His arm is in a sling and he approaches you slowly. “What?”

He takes a breath then slowly says, “Thank you.” There’s no trace of a stutter in his voice. 

You want to shrug it off but you’re tired and his sincerity is cutting. “You’re welcome.” But you’re still you so you can’t help but add, “Who knows what would have happened if I hadn’t gone along. You might have ended up shooting Rick instead of rescuing him.”

C-137’s face goes tight and you almost regret saying it. “You’re right. Not that I would have killed him tonight, but some other night, in another situation. If I thought he or anyone else was a threat to my family.” It looks like it costs him something, his pride or maybe even his decency, to admit that. “Or if they just push me too far and I don’t know if I have any lines I’m not willing to cross at that point.” You’re not quite gaping at him as he speaks but it’s a close thing. “I don’t know if you’re any better than me, but, well, we’re the same person. If anyone’s going to understand where I’m coming from it’s going to be you. So okay, let’s try this again, yeah?”

A beat of silence passes between you. You wonder if this will stick or if it’s just post adventure adrenaline that’s convinced him that all of this is a good idea. 

“Okay.” You finally agree. It’s not like you weren’t already planning on staying and keeping an eye on him. At least for a little while C-137’s probably not going to give you too much grief for it. 

(Maybe between Rick sticking around and you keeping an eye on him he won’t go bad like you did. Maybe, just maybe he’ll come out on the other side of this all with some kind of moral code intact.)


End file.
